An imposing book by virtue of size alone, the 640-page Dietrich & Riefenstahl: Hollywood, Berlin, and a Century in Two Lives is also decidedly ambitious. The dual biography explores the profoundly different paths taken by two iconic and influential German artists in the years before and after Hitler’s rise to power.

The parallel stories of actress-singer Marlene Dietrich and filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl are told via an interweaving of politics, culture, German filmmaking, Hollywood and the uncompromising personal lives of the two women. The author, Berlin-based historian Karin Weiland, is up to the task. She doggedly mined a mountain of source materials, including various German archives, and gives context to the complex historical narrative that shaped Dietrich and Riefenstahl. As translated by Shelley Frisch, who previously translated examinations of Einstein, Kafka and Nietzsche, this is a compelling work that provides both scholarly assessment and page-turning dish.

Born within a year of one another, Dietrich and Riefenstahl were part of the early German film industry. They even competed for the same role—cabaret headliner Lola Lola in the 1930 classic The Blue Angel. Dietrich got the part, which paved her way to Hollywood and international stardom. Riefenstahl went on to appear in a series of “mountain films,” a genre that showcased physicality and German nationalism. She also become a comrade of Hitler, and directed documentaries extolling the Third Reich. As every student of film knows, Triumph of the Will (1935) remains one of the greatest, most disturbing pieces of propaganda ever made. Riefenstahl followed it with the equally famous Olympia (1938), about the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.

Dietrich, meanwhile, emigrated and became a favorite of American moviegoers—the most exotic transplant since Garbo. She took on U.S. citizenship and more than proved her patriotism with wartime work for the USO. She was actually given a rank and a uniform. Captain Dietrich was the first woman to be awarded the Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest distinction for civilian contributions to the war effort.

As for Riefenstahl, she later insisted she had no knowledge of what went on behind the walls of Germany’s concentration camps, and claimed to be ignorant of her country’s virulent and deadly anti-Semitism.

The two women enjoyed long lives, as well as latter-day attention. Dietrich reinvented herself in Las Vegas and took her act on the road—complete with diaphanous gown and teetering Ferragamo heels. Riefenstahl became a sought-after photographer and a darling of the film festival circuit. In covering their stories, the author has a clear favorite in the less complicated–and controversial–Dietrich. Your decision awaits.

Ancient Rome helps define the way we understand the world and think about ourselves. The ideas of liberty and citizenship, the Western calendar, phrases such as “beware of Greeks bearing gifts” and much more came from this one source. Renowned classicist Mary Beard, a professor at Cambridge University, has spent much of the last 50 years studying the literature of the Romans and the thousands of books and papers written about them. Her magnificent, eminently readable SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome is an authoritative exploration of how a small and unremarkable village became such a dominant power on three continents. The title of the book refers to the Senate and the Roman People, the main sources of authority in first-century BCE Rome. 

Beard says two things undermine modern myths about early Roman power. First, it’s true that Roman culture placed a high value on success in battle. She doesn’t excuse its terrible brutality. However, violence was endemic in that era, and other peoples were just as committed to warfare and atrocities as the Romans. Second, the Romans didn’t plan to conquer and control Italy. They saw their expansion in terms of making alliances with other people rather than gaining territory. The only long-term obligation the Romans imposed on those they defeated was the provision and upkeep of troops for the Roman armies.

From early times, Roman culture was extraordinarily open to outsiders, which distinguished it from every other ancient city. Peoples of Roman provinces were usually given full citizenship.

Beard notes that the most extraordinary fact about Roman culture is that so much of what they wrote still survives. She gives particular attention to Cicero, where we find “by far the most sustained insight” into the life of a notable Roman.

SPQR is the best kind of history. With a deep knowledge of her subject and a healthy skepticism about what we think we know, she enlightens us with riveting prose while broadening our perspective.

This article was originally published in the November 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

James A. Michener had his Tales of the South Pacific. Now comes Simon Winchester—an equally engaging storyteller—with his tales of the vast Pacific, all 64 million square miles of it. To make such a gargantuan subject manageable, he selects specific events which he says symbolize larger cultural, political and scientific truths about the region. One of the most intriguing of these is how Japan’s perfection of pocket-size transistor radios not only gave rise to the Sony consumer electronics empire but also changed how much of the world entertained itself. 

Winchester primarily concerns himself with events that occurred after 1950, the year President Truman gave the go-ahead for developing the hydrogen bomb. In the course of testing that dreaded device, the U.S. callously uprooted island-dwellers from their ancient homelands and showered the area with nuclear detritus, evidence of which still abounds. But the tide has been turning against such arrogance, Winchester says. The French and then the Americans were driven out of Vietnam, Britain had to relinquish Hong Kong to China and the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 forced the closing of two huge American military bases, thus creating a power vacuum into which the Chinese military has steadily moved. Winchester’s final chapter describes how China is systematically pushing out into the Pacific to lay claim to what were once Western-dominated waters.

Elsewhere, Winchester probes such Pacific-oriented science stories as the discovery of deep-ocean hydrothermal vents, the alarming phenomenon of coral bleaching and the rise of super storms. But he provides lighter fare, as well, as when the 1959 movie Gidget sparked an international enthusiasm for surfing, a sport long established in Hawaii.

This article was originally published in the November 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.